Belarusians in Crimea. It's time to visit officially
The Belarusian delegation arrived in Crimea. One of its representatives, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, political scientist Alexei Dzermant, called the purpose of the visit “an exchange of views on the development of further integration processes.”
On Thursday, the delegation already visited the grave of the Belarusian poet Maxim Bogdanovich in Yalta, whose birth anniversary was 130 years old. Participation in the Livadia Forum is planned for Friday, within the framework of which a meeting of the Russia-Belarus expert club will be held.
In total, the delegation consists of 5 people. In addition to Dzermant, it included deputy chairman of the public association “Belaya Rus” Alexander Shatko, member of the Constitutional Commission Alexander Shpakovsky, researcher, chairman of the organizing committee of the political party “Union” Sergei Lushch, analyst of the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies Alexei Avdonin.
They all have one thing in common - they are political scientists, prominent representatives of Lukashenko’s expert and propaganda pool. One of those that never leave the airwaves of various talk shows, and whose opinions are constantly referenced on pro-government websites and telegram channels.
Accordingly, there will be a lot of information noise in Belarus on the Crimean issue in the near future. Until now, members of this delegation have spoken evasively on the issue of recognition of Crimea.
Thus, Alexey Dzermant in May, in the wake of the hype around the ban on Belavia flights, said that his personal position is to unequivocally recognize and launch a direct flight from Minsk to Crimea, but any state leader must calculate the consequences of his decisions, including the prospects for relations with Ukraine. It seems like “I don’t mind, but “father” knows better, he will calculate everything.”
Another expert, Alexander Shpakovsky, completely blamed the constant raising of the topic of recognition of Crimea on... Russian liberals.
“There are certain circles in Russia that are simply using the topic of Crimea, like many other nuances of Belarusian-Russian relations, to further aggravate the situation and try to somehow cast Lukashenko in a negative light,” he noted, adding that this is mainly “the so-called liberal forces - pTherefore, the President of Belarus will continue to be teased with this aspect.”
And this is just a month ago, after Lukashenko directly stated during a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State that he intended to visit the peninsula.
On November 30, Alexander Lukashenko said that “Crimea has de facto and de jure become Russian.” Will the rhetoric of representatives of his expert pool change after this? We'll see soon. In the meantime, we have heard the words of the same Shpakovsky, who in an interview with the Russian-Belarusian television channel BelRosTV already said that the Belarusian state has nothing to do with this visit, and he, like Dzermant and Avdonin, arrived solely for the sake of expert research interest. And he's right. There is not a single government official in the delegation. Some experts are political scientists.
Expert interest is, of course, good. And I welcome any forms of such “public diplomacy” aimed at bringing Belarus and Crimea closer together. I myself was also in Crimea at the beginning of November, and also as part of a Belarusian delegation that had nothing to do with the state. But he articulated his position much more clearly.
By the way, not so long ago, some telegram channels disseminated “insiders” that Lukashenko himself was supposed to fly in on December 9 to celebrate the anniversary of Maxim Bogdanovich. Whether this is so is difficult to say. But, in any case, it didn’t work out.
Visits of unofficial delegations are necessary and important. Both close to power and not so close. Political scientists, politicians, businessmen... Right down to schoolchildren in health camps. But I would like to wait for the official visit as soon as possible. Moreover, it has already been promised.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.